“Yes,” sighed Zenas. “We soon must part, but I shall always carry her image in my heart.”
“This certain is the worst case I’ve struck in a long while,” said Brad.
“She comes!” breathed Zenas, in sudden excitement. “She comes this way! Behave yourselves, boys! Be young gentlemen. Don’t cause me to blush for your manners.”
Miss Sarah Ann Ketchum, tall, angular, and painfully plain, came stalking along the deck, peering through her gold-rimmed spectacles, which were perched on the extreme elevation of her camel-back nose.
“Steady, Brad!” warned Dick. “Keep your face straight.”
Miss Ketchum had her eye on the professor; he had his eye on her. She smiled and bowed; he doffed his hat and scraped. Like a prancing colt he advanced to meet her.
“Does not this panoramic spectacle of the Orient arouse within your innermost depths unspeakable emotions, both ecstatic and execrable, Professor Gunn?” asked the lady from Boston. “As you gaze on these shores can you not feel your quivering inner self writhing with the shocking realization of the innumerable excruciating horrors which have stained the shuddering years during which the power of the Turk has been supreme in this sanguine land? Do you not hear within the citadel of your soul a clarion call to duty?
“Are you not oppressed by an intense and all-controlling yearning to do something for the poor, downtrodden Armenians who have been mercilessly ground beneath the iron heel of these heartless hordes of the sultan? I know you do! I have seen it in your countenance, molded by noble and lofty thoughts and towering and exalted ambitions, which lift you to sublime heights far above the swarming multitudes of common earthy clay. Have I not stated your attitude on this stupendous subject to the infinitesimal fraction of a mathematical certainty, professor?”
“Indeed you have, Miss Ketchum!” exclaimed Zenas.
“Oh, wow!” gasped Buckhart, leaning weakly on the rail. “Did you hear that flow of hot air, Dick?”